Heritage Researchers: The old houses of Damascus are an innovative, innate architecture whose impact reached Andalusia

Damascus-Sana

“Old Damascene Houses ... Perfume Bottles” is a title chosen by researchers who participated in a symposium held by the Arab Cultural Center in Kfarsousa that dealt with the sections of these houses, their beauty and their impact on architecture around the world.

The researcher Ilham Mahfoud, the curator of the Arabic Calligraphy Museum in Damascus, explained that the Damascene house has its beauty distinct from others in various cities, and that the richness of this city with its archaeological houses prompted the Directorate of Antiquities and Museums to register a large number, take care of them and restore them, including Khaled Al-Azm House, which became the Damascene House Museum of the Levant and the Akkad House and became the center The Danish cultural scene has been restored, as well as many monuments, houses and architectural masterpieces.

Mahfoud showed that poets, thinkers, and orientalists likened the Damascene house to paradise because it contained beautiful decorations on stone, wood and marble, such as the Persian ornamentation, and the ceilings decorated with these geometric and linear artistic decorations, poems and judgment. House architecture according to the social status of the family.

Researcher Anas Tello is interested in Damascene heritage. He explained that the title of the symposium came from the saying of the Damascene poet Nizar Qabbani, “Do you know what it means for a person to live in a perfume bottle”, pointing out that the tourists who go to Al-Fayha are looking for the Damascene heritage for brotherhood and love and not only about architecture, stressing that Damascus Which succeeded in many historical stages and peoples were a melting pot that melted all civilizations and produced a unique civilization and homes designed without engineering and science, but with an innate creative art whose impact reached Morocco and Andalusia.

The researcher in folklore Najla Al-Khadra indicated in her intervention that the Damascene house carries all the high specifications in terms of architecture, decoration, division, the square in between, wood, glass, sea and trees, noting the importance of evoking heritage as a duty of the citizen towards his homeland, especially in our days because it is an identity and must be preserved.

Naima Suleiman, head of Thaqafi, Kafr Sousse, saw that heritage represents a bridge between the past and the present, and it is our identity that distinguishes us from other peoples, and it is necessary to pay attention to it, especially the architecture that is embodied in Damascene houses, where art begins with it from the walls, stones, trees, roses and jasmine thrown in its courtyard.

Bilal Ahmad